Breaking Point
by KrisEleven
Summary: Written for the May/June Challenge at TPE: Writing Challenges forum. Everyone has a breaking point. Daine's came two days after her family was murdered; Snowsdale took thirteen years to reach theirs.


A/N This is being written for the May/June challenge posted over on the Tamora Pierce Experiement: Writing Challenges forum. The challenge this 'month' was to pick a _very_ minor character and write a story expanding on their lives and place in the Tortall or Emelan 'verse.

Another thing going on in the life of KrisEleven is the Ficship Competitions. The nominations are over, but you all have to go vote in the polls! The top five in each poll move onto the judging round, and your favs need your help to get there. Also, two of my stories got put in there (_Tangled_ and _The Art of Stealing and Surprise_) so, yea, go vote for me. Shameless, I know.

Now onto this story.

**Warning**: I found this increasingly disturbing to write as I got through it. It was inspired by my *coughhatredcough* of the back-to-Snowsdale stories where the people of her village are made out to be these monsters who have no reasons behind what they did, so I picked the character Daine mentions in her retelling of what happened and I tried to make his motivations as believable as possible. However, since this is his motivation for _hunting down a thirteen year old girl and killing her because she killed bandits while believing she was a wolf_, it is not a great story to read to the kids. There is also brief mention of the after-effects of rape and some other violent descriptions, so please be warned.

* * *

><p>Hakkon Falconer prepared to rebuild his home with patience when the bandits finally left. His wife was on the other side of the wreckage that was once her carefully-tended garden. She had her back turned to him as she pretended to be sifting through for something to salvage, but Hakkon knew she was hiding her tears and he left her with some privacy. Maree Bruesri had always been proud about her strength and he knew she wouldn't want him to acknowledge her tears, even though he ached to hold on to her.<p>

Hakkon sighed, looking over the wreckage again. It would take the better part of the month to repair what had been destroyed and replace what they took, and Maree, though she would try, was not in any position to help him or even to feed them while he built; she cupped her hands protectively around their child growing six months in her belly.

She glanced over at him, her eyes red but the tears dashed from her cheeks. He smiled at her. "We'll be a'right," he promised. She nodded faithfully, but her hands pressed closer to her stomach.

* * *

><p>"I tell you, Hakkon, she was there when we went up and she threw <em>rocks<em> at us!"

Hakkon set aside the full quiver of arrows he had finished sorting and reached for the next empty quiver he had to fill. He did not look up from the work to acknowledge his friend, Marc, as the other man complained. Marc and his wife, Kaelyn, had escaped most of the worst damage, and had agreed to spend the day with Maree and Hakkon, setting things to right on their land.

Hakkon tried to remind himself that he wasn't the miller, who had died when his mill had been destroyed, or even the headman or wheelwright, whose wife and daughter had been taken by the bandits, but it was difficult to be grateful to the gods when your pregnant wife was going hungry because of the violence of other men.

"What did you expect?," Hakkon asked. "She has always been a weird girl, right enough. If her house and family are gone, then to be expected that she would just get worse. She's prob'ly heading over to the next valley... Sara had some friends there who'll take her in."

"That witch-brat?"

Hakkon snorted. "I'd take her in myself just for the way she pulls in game if I had a place to put her," he said, half serious. The lord would be happy that the falcons had all survived the bandits, but that didn't mean Hakkon would be supplied with any more food than usual, and they had always relied on Maree's garden to get them through.

"And her being a bad example for whichever babe you and Maree end up with."

"That girl, seems to me, wasn't anything worse than a little off."

"A _little_ off? You're just saying that 'cause you was sweet on her ma. That girl was more than a little cracked and is now completely crazy on top of it. She was screaming at us; not even any words, Hakkon, just this animal screamin'... like a rabbit caught in a trap."

Hakkon looked up from his arrows then, catching something in his friend's voice. Marc had the tendency to bluster, but there was some honest disquiet in his features now; the Sarrasri girl had disturbed him, more than he would admit.

"She'll calm down," Hakkon said. "Give her a few more days and we'll go back up there, see if we can talk to her. If she won't go on over to her ma's friend, we'll figure her out. Now get to work. What am I payin' you two for?"

Both Marc and Kaelyn laughed; he, of course, was paying them naught. Hakkon smiled as Marc sat down, talking at length about his latest calf as he sorted the arrows into piles for Hakkon to pack away. Kaelyn moved away to join Maree at whatever woman business they had to finish. Hakkon pushed down a notion of unease. He had said they would figure her out, but just what that would mean he had _no_ idea.

* * *

><p>"Kaelyn said you mentioned taking in that Sarrasri girl."<p>

Hakkon knew he was in trouble before Maree even finished her sentence. There was a rigidity to the set of her shoulders, a carefully put-on nonchalance that had him thinking desperately about what he might have done wrong. So when she did get to the end of her sentence, he was surprised by the topic.

"I was just saying that she was a fine hunter, is all. There's no way we could take her in here. She'll go over to those friends on the other side of the valley, mark my words." There was a noticeable release of tension in Maree's shoulders. "I didn't think you disliked her that much."

"I got no argument with her. She's always been sweet when I see her helping you with the falcons, right enough, but... she's just not natural, is she?"

"Not natural?"

"She frightens me a bit, to be honest. I saw her talking to a rabbit one day, right on the side of the road where anyone could see her, with the rabbit sitting there staring like it understood what she was saying to it. And when I walked by, she waved and continued on talking like it was nothing. I've no explanation for it; it's not right for her to be doing those kind of things, surely. And it's not natural that animals act around her like they do. Remember Harwin's mutt?"

Hakkon did remember. That old man had that dog trained to take the arms off anyone stepping foot on the farm and more than one child had narrowly escaped a nasty bite playing in the stream on the very edge of Harwin's land. Except Veralidaine had come into the village trailing that dog like it was a puppy raised by her hand alone, not the brutal beast Harwin had kept the last five years. "Some dogs take to kindness."

"The dog attacked Harwin that night. You think that's just taking to kindness?"

Hakkon shook his head. "It was mighty odd, I admit. But Harwin had that coming."

"And the bear? She went into a fit and called that bear on Rout."

Hakkon shivered. He could have gone his entire life without seeing that rabid bear, or having to go through the terrible ordeal of killing it before it got at one of the people of Snowsdale. And Veralidaine _had_ gone all-over shivers and shouting before that bear charged out of the woods. Rout had very nearly died that day, never mind how close everyone in the village had come, if the bear had truly gotten loose on them all. Hakkon's own niece had been visiting for the week; she could very well have been killed if they hadn't had weapons on hand to put the beast down.

He realized Maree was staring at him, waiting on an answer. "Don't worry," he said, "I got no intention to bring her here."

Maree nodded, stress in her forehead and mouth soothed away as she returned to her knitting.

Hakkon stood to add logs to the fire, frowning. Not natural, Maree had said. Hakkon had experience with the unnatural; they had put the bear out of its misery because it was a danger to everything around it. Unnatural in its disease, it had no place left to fit to. A mercy, really.

There was a pounding on the door, causing Maree to jump and drop her yarn, her eyes wide.

Hakkon picked up the axe leaning against the woodstove, but there was no need; when the door flew open, it was Marc on the other side.

"Them women that got taken; they're back!"

* * *

><p>Hakkon and Marc pushed their way through the crowd around the headman's house. As senior men in Snowsdale, both with standing because of their positions working for their lord, people mostly parted for them, even calling questions until they reached the door and pulled it open, stepping into the front room of the headman's house. The headman and his wife, Rashell, along with the wheelwright, whose wife held their shocked daughter closely were already talking within. There was a handful of other men from the village, all of who nodded or waved quickly to Hakkon and Marc.<p>

"I'm telling you, Mattew," Rashell was saying, "that Sarrasri girl saved our lives."

"But she came into the cave with _wolves_?"

"Yes, but –"

"And she was wearing not a stitch?"

"She killed them. They were going to kill us before they moved on and she killed them."

"She almost killed us too," the wheelwright's daughter said, her voice toneless.

The others in the room grumbled in quiet conversation.

"She..." Rashell stopped, shrugging her shoulders as she tried to think up a defence. "She let us go."

"Did she speak to you at all?" Hakkon asked.

Rashell looked at him for a long moment before she shook her head. "She just bared her teeth and growled... but then she recognized us, I swear, and she backed away to let us out of the caves."

Hakkon nodded and smiled soothingly, but he met Mattew's meaningful glance with one of his own.

"I told you she was acting like an animal, didn't I, Hakkon? I told you, when we went up to the house first thing," Marc said.

"Maybe Rashell and your daughter would like to go and rest," Hakkon said to the wheelwright, who nodded and ushered his daughter and wife from the room. Rashell spoke softly and urgently to her husband before he nodded and reached out a hand to brush her cheek. She flinched away and rushed from the room, leaving him looking striken.

Hakkon moved in to speak with him softly. "There's no one gladder than you that they're dead," he said to Mattew, as he stared past him, after the door that had shut behind his wife. Marc was relating the story of the rocks loudly to the others in the room. "But the girl is acting like an animal, Mattew. Something has to be done."

"I'll not stand by and let men from this village hunt down a _girl_, Hakkon."

"But you'll stand and let her die out there when winter comes? Or be ripped apart by the wolves she's _running_ with? Or the bandits that's left catch her and have their way with her?" Mattew flinched away, wounded by that last one. Hakkon grabbed his arm. "I cannot let Sarra's daughter –" He stopped, his voice breaking. "I love Maree," he said finally. "I love my wife. But I would have married Sarra if she'd given me a yes and I've no other way to protect her daughter other than put her down before she gets hurt worse. She's not _right_. You heard Rashell, and she was trying to _protect_ the girl. What is your wife not telling us, because she feels like she's helping the girl? She killed men with her bare hands and teeth, Mattew. There's no coming back to normal from that."

Mattew held up his hand to stop Hakkon, but he was nodding. The other men had continued their story-telling, scaring themselves like children telling ghost stories.

"You control them Hakkon," Mattew said. "Them that are afraid _of_ her won't do what has to be done. You're afraid _for_ her, and you do it right."

Hakkon had nothing else to say. He waited outside alone while Mattew gave the other their orders.

* * *

><p>There had been a day, back when he and Sarra were spending most of their time together, that he had first taught Veralidaine how to tend a sick falcon. The girl, about seven or so at the time, had held out her hands trustingly for the falcon, and had nearly been rewarded with the loss of a finger when the sick bird, scared and confused, had slashed at her.<p>

"Now, see here girl, how would you feel if something so much bigger came at you when you couldn't get away and felt too sick to run? That's why we always come gently, with gloves on if we don't think it will scare her too badly." He was reaching out as he explained, tucking his hands gently under the falcon and holding her wings with his thumbs where she couldn't bite at him. "There, you see? Now she can't hurt herself _or_ me. And we can move her on over here. You know how to make a sick falcon accept food?No? What _has_ your ma been teaching you? I'll show you."

Hakkon had been pleased when Sarra had rewarded him with a kiss upon bringing Veralidaine back home after that day, but he would admit only to himself that watching the girl's face light up when that bird had finally taken a scrap of meat from her had meant more.

And now he was waiting on the dirt path outside of the caves the bandits had used, one of the lord's hunters hidden in the foliage at the side of the path and he called out the girl's name and waited for her to come into the archer's line of sight.

She came out, and he was shocked by how she could look like Sarra even as she looked so remarkably un-human. She walked with her hands on the ground in an animalistic crawl that was surprisingly graceful considering how unnatural it was. Her hair was a wild mess around her dirt streaked face, and filled with debris that had caught in the curls. When Hakkon noticed that her hands and one side of her face were streaked with blood up to the elbow, he wondered suddenly what had happened to the bandits after they had died, and felt immediately sick for the thought. The position she was hunched in covered the fact that she wasn't wearing clothes for a moment as she emerged onto the road, but once his gaze shifted from her face to her hands and arms, Hakkon couldn't help but notice it. Diverting his eyes from her nakedness, he saw that Marc's eyes never left her, and he knew he could never be friends with the man in the same way again.

"Veralidaine, honey," he called out, taking a small step forward so her eyes locked on him, "it's time for you to come in with us. Come back to Snowsdale before you take sick." _Or worse_. There was no change in her wary, feral expression as she stared at him from her position just out of his archer's line of sight. "Look, girl, come in now. I'll let you stay with me; I need you to help me look after the birds." There was a flash of interest. "Some have taken sick," he lied. "I need you to help me nurse them back." She moved forward, then, slowly. He didn't dare look away from her face as she moved towards the archer's position in the trees. "There we are, sweetheart." _I'm so sorry._

Suddenly there was an angry crashing as his archer was thrown out onto the road by a furious pony. Hakkon jumped back as the man flew onto the path in front of him. The girl turned and was running back into the safety of the trees before Hakkon could react, and the pony followed after her, leaving the archer moaning on the road behind them.

"Veralidaine! Honey, you're _sick_. You know it. Somewhere inside you know that this is crazy; that you're not right. It's for your own good."

"She's a _monster_," one of the men shouted, eyes wide. "Did you see that pony?"

"The demon horse is following that witch-child's commands..."

"The monster knew we were here..."

"We're coming after you, monster!" Marc yelled out into the trees.

Hakkon held out an arm that hit Marc hard on the chest, shooting him an angry look that silenced the rest of the men's shouts, if not their frightened murmurs.

"You're like the rabid bear, girl," he called out into the unnaturally silent trees; even the birds were dead silent as if listening to his words. "You need to be put down merciful or nothing but death will follow you. It will be quick, all over in a minute, I promise you." He waited and the silence stretched on. "I promise you, Sarra," he whispered.

The birds began to chatter first, followed by the rest of the men with Hakkon. Hakkon himself stared up into the trees and mountains around him, looking for any movement that meant the girl might be close by as the men's voices rose into a fevered pitch and he finally turned to look at them.

He looked around at the angry _frightened_ faces around him and knew he would never be able to stop them from going after her; the best tracker had already grabbed onto her trail.

"_Them that are afraid of her won't do what has to be done. You're afraid_ for_ her, and you do it right."_

Hakkon nodded as the tracker looked to him for permission. As he stepped out into the forest after Veralidaine, he closed his eyes briefly against a sudden wave of sorrow that nearly stopped him in his tracks.

_Sarra, please forgive me. She'll be home with you soon_.

It was the only thing to be done about her now. It was the right thing. And Hakkon believed that.


End file.
